Lautenberg Pushes for Rail Safety Funding in U.S. Senate

NJBIZ, Oct 6, 2008

Bloomberg News

RAIL OPERATORS ACROSS the United States have until 2015 to install equipment that helps trains brake in an emergency after the Senate approved new safety legislation late last week.

The bill also would more than double funding for Amtrak, the U.S. passenger railroad, to $13.1 billion. Railways including Union Pacific, the largest in the United States, lobbied in favor of the bill.

Senators voted 74-24 in support of the legislation. Lawmakers sped up consideration of the bill over the past month after 25 people died in a Los Angeles crash Sept. 12, when a Metrolink commuter train slammed into a freight locomotive after an engineer missed a signal.

"Unfortunately, we have been recently reminded of the acute need for safety improvements," bill sponsor Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) said during the Senate debate. The Metrolink crash "might have been avoided had the necessary investments in technology been made. This bill is long overdue."

Installing so-called positive train control technology on major routes may cost railroads as much as $5 billion, Macquarie Bank Ltd. analyst Arturo Vernon said in a report this week. The measure also limits the work hours of some train operators, which may force railways to hire more staff, according to Stanford Group Co.'s Clint Currie, in Washington.

President George Bush's decision on whether to sign the bill may depend on the Amtrak section, where the government is seeking "significant reforms," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

"We are concerned that this bill doesn't require meaningful reforms or guide funds based on demand for rail service," he said in an e-mail.